It's happened to me but because i was using a page, they made me put the code in the header instead.
Stating it was easy to spoof a 200 on my site.I think it's a good thing mod_rewrite can be triky but personally i use it for site safety. Browse a non existing page and bam your back to index.
Anyways, maybe it's time you asked them why they make you work so much

?